Well, our propshaft is once again connected to our engine and the whole thing works! It turned out that the thing that broke was not our transmission but a plastic disk that is bolted between the transmission and the prop shaft which is supposed to break when subjected to shock loads and thus protect the transmission...Being an electrical engineer, I'm used to having the $1000 piece of equipment blow to protect the five-cent fuse so I was shocked to find that the little plastic disc actually did its job! Of course, it took a couple of days to order in a replacement and get it installed, but it was much faster and cheaper than a new transmission.

So, with our spiffy new plastic disk, we have gotten underway again, without Evelyn who will rejoin us in a week. Today we braved the infamous "condo canyon" where the ICW runs between concrete walls on both sides and the shores are lined by condos and houses the likes of which you thought only existed in moves...not to mention large numbers of really, really big yachts. Also, it being a Saturday, lots of folks were out driving on the ICW so we were often in a crowd of boats ranging from 10-foot runabouts to 100-foot power yachts. And of course, this being an increasingly urban area, there were lots of bridges: We passed through no less than fifteen bridges today, and most of them were on schedules...which made for some interesting times waiting with all those boats in close proximity. But it was a great day and really a very enjoyable look at how the other 1% live!

We have also turned the corner of south Florida now and are slowly starting to turn to the west, a turn that gradually increases until we reach the lower keys where we'll be going almost due west, In addition, we are now further south than we've been previously on our boat, having passed south of the latitude of Sandy Key in the Bahamas.

We're now watching the weather closely as the hop from here to the keys will involve sailing offshore for about 60 miles and we'd rather not have 20-knot winds in our face. At the moment, it looks like Tuesday may be our day, but we'll see, In the mean time, Ft. Lauderdale seems like it might not be a bad place to hang out....